NEW DELHI: Chief of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has clarified that there has been no breach of any Aadhaar data and compromise of individual’s privacy and security through an App developed by an individual based in Bengaluru.

Abhinav Srivastav (31), a software development engineer working in Ola's head office at Koramangala, was arrested by the Bengaluru's Central Crime Branch in connection with a complaint filed by UIDAI against him and Qarth Technologies, which was acquired by Ola in March last year, for misusing Aadhaar data obtained from its website without authentication.

Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CEO of UIDAI said in a statement on Friday that residents were downloading their own demographic data such as name, address, gender etc, through this application and therefore the alleged privacy violations are not true.

“No one could not get data of any other person through this app. Even though residents were downloading their own demographic data such as name, address etc , yet legal actions were initiated against the owner of the App since it was not authorized to provide such services to people and such acts are criminal offence punishable action as per Aadhaar Act, 2016. It is further reiterated that data of not even a single non-consenting resident has been given by UIDAI through this App,” said Pandey.

Pandey reiterated that Aadhaar data is completely safe and secure and requested people not to disclose their Aadhaar number to any unauthorized or unknown websites or Apps or persons on phone.

In July, in a written response to a question in Parliament, the government said that more than 200 government websites, including educational institutes, had published names of beneficiaries of welfare schemes with their addresses and Aadhaar numbers. It had added that there has been no leakage of Aadhaar data from UIDAI.

The complaint in this case was filed at the High Ground Police Station on July 26 and it was later transferred to Cyber Crime police. Though Srivastav reportedly went underground, the police were able to locate and arrest him.

“During the last six years, more than 600 crore Aadhaar authentication transactions have taken place and to the best of knowledge of UIDAI no incident of misuse of biometrics leading to identity theft and financial loss has been taken place,” said Pandey. He added that Aadhaar based authentication is robust and secure as compared to any other contemporary systems and Aadhaar system has the capability to inquire into any instance of misuse of biometrics and identity theft and initiate action.

“UIDAI uses one of world's most advanced encryption technologies in transmission and storage of data. As a result, during the last 7 seven years, there has been no report of breach or leak of residents' data out of UIDAI,” he said.